THE AEROSPACE HUB

The Canadian aerospace sector is at a tipping point. Through co-location and collaboration Ontario's Aerospace Hub at Downsview Park will enhance workforce training, skills and development, and R&D.

The Downsview Aerospace Innovation and Research (DAIR) Consortium, an association of all of the large aerospace companies and leading postsecondary education institutions from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), have come together with the joint mandate of developing an Aerospace Hub at Downsview Park in Toronto, Ontario. At the heart of the Hub, an Aerospace Research and Innovation Centre will bridge industry, academia, and government partnerships. It will catalyze new research and development initiatives, primarily by offering a shared space to house offices of various industry, academic, and government organizations, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), experimental and test facilities, and space for technology development.

The Impact

The Downsview Aerospace Hub can help bring the right players to a centralized location to enable more effective collaboration, and ultimately better position Canada to compete in this increasingly competitive global marketplace.

Aircraft production is expected to grow 45% by 2020. The long-term demand for new airplanes is expected to reach 35,280 planes valued at $4.8 trillion.

The Hub will facilitate increased collaboration between industry and academia, enhancing workforce training, skills development and R&D.

DAIR members include Ontario’s leading post-secondary institutions in aerospace: Centennial, UTIAS, Ryerson and York.

The Ontario aerospace industry has a GDP impact of over $3 billion, which represents 25% of the GDP impact for Canada.

The 2012 Federal Aerospace Review (Recommendation 17) identifies Downsview as a strategic location to create a hub given its high level of aerospace activity.

The Hub is projected to create up to 14,400 sustainable jobs and provide direct, indirect, and induced benefits of up to $2.3 billion over the next 20 years.

CONSTRUCTION LIVE STREAM

“One of the significant constraints to industry growth identified is an aging workforce and skilled labour shortage. One proposal to address this challenge–for which there is significant support–is to establish an aerospace campus at the Downsview Park site. This would leverage Ontario’s very best educational institutions in a unique partnership designed to develop innovative new technologies, aid in workforce training and skills development, and participate in supply chain development activities. This campus would provide an anchor point to a proposed aerospace technology corridor between Toronto and Montréal and enhance the capabilities of both centres.”

The Downsview Legacy

In April 1929, William de Havilland built de Havilland Aircraft of Canada. It began with a staff of 35 in a 20,000sq. ft. plant next to the railway.

The factory was Canada’s largest supplier of military, civilian and government owned aircraft in the 1930s.

The site was expanded during World War II by the Royal Canadian Air Force and renamed RCAF Station Downsview. After the war, de Havilland Canada began to build its own designs uniquely suited to the harsh Canadian operating environment.

In the 1980s, the Canadian government privatized DHC and in 1986 sold the aircraft company to then Seattle-based Boeing. DHC was eventually acquired by Montreal-based Bombardier Aerospace in 1992.

News

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On March 22 and 23, 2017 the Ontario Aerospace Council (OAC) hosted their second annual Beyond the Barriers: Building the Ontario Aerospace R&T Community event at the Toronto Airport Marriott Hotel that was focused on building academic partnerships, finding funding partners, and networking … [Read More...] about DAIR and OAC Sign Strategic Partnership MOU